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Paphos, Cyprus
Posts: 15 since Apr 2012
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Maybe you noticed, it seems that time is moving at a faster pace. There “used to be” 24 hours in a day, at the moment it seems there are only 16 hours in a day. You wake up, do your morning ritual and suddenly it seems bed time again. Time seems to go so much faster than it used to be. Initially I thought it was due to the internet, where processing of information goes in a split second. Then I thought it was perhaps because of age, time passing by. Older people “need more time”. But then again, I am not old. So what is it? What happened to us?
It seems the energy has changed compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Our frequency of vibrating seems to have gone to a higher level. New information is processed more quickly; things from the past seem to be quickly boring. Then there is this drive: a continuous drive felt as a pressure from within or from the outside world (the “system”).
It never seems good enough anymore. Whatever one does, it never seems adequate. Whether it is personal or at work: “there is always room for improvement”. You have completed a task on schedule, within budget and according to the rules and regulations. Then it is often said or thought:
“next time we or I can do it”:
- faster
- more efficient
- cheaper
- better
- involve less people (“maybe a computer can take over”)
- involve more people (“there is a lot of unemployment now”)and improve production
- we want more (greed from within or from the system)
Fill in any argument what suits you. Problem is, there is never a moment of rest.
On a personal level, if you are a perfectionist, you will have a hard time keeping up. If you are in the Self-Employed quadrant it will be difficult to keep “all the balls in the air”. If you are in the “Employed” quadrant time is basically a given. You go to work, do your job, come back home tired, then family life takes up the rest of your time. The years fly by.
This is a good basis for self-reflection and perhaps a few exercises. One of the possible exercises is to write down for yourself in an Excel spreadsheet how you fill your time. The intention of the exercise is to make one more conscious of time.
Our suggestion would be to make a list of your time allocation e.g. number of hours for the routine activity (sleep 8 hours/day etc.). Then complete the spreadsheet and see how much time there is left over.
So there is 1,3 work week per month (55/40) left over to do something else, or 28 weeks per year.
Now, as an exercise, get rid of activities like watching television and see how much time one can free oneself up.
The next step would be to see what activity gives you energy and what activity costs you energy on a scale of 0 to 10.
For example: working for a boss might cost you energy (give it a number on the scale of 0 to 10) whereas trading might give you energy (again give it a number).
There are a whole lot of things costing you energy.
That might be personal stuff like:
negative emotions (not trusting yourself or not trusting others, anger, lack of control, taking responsibility in a unhealthy manner, not using your full potential, feeling of never being good enough, feeling of never having enough time, feeling of never being able to complete something to satisfaction)
shopping
traveling to work
to-do lists
admin/taxes/bookkeeping
The list that gives you energy might be as involved:
Sleeping
“doing nothing”
Sports
Spending time with friends
The list is just an example and meant to be a stimulation to find out for yourself what works for you and what doesn’t.
Once you have made your list, allocate the time to the activity and see how you can improve your awareness of time, your allocation of time to an activity and particularly the time you allocate to reach your goal for example financial freedom).
This list will help you in feeling much better because you will be emphasizing things that give you energy and it will make you more efficient in obtaining your goal. If your goal is financial freedom you will be able to allocate time in such a way that it is beneficial to you.
Another possible exercise after you allocated the time involved, is to write down the “perception in % of total time” for example work might take 8 hours per day or 40 hours per week. The perception however might be that work takes up 80% of your time. In other words, how you perceive that activity gives you the impression that most of your time is allocated to work. This exercise helps in changing perceptions and make changes that are beneficial to you.
How does this all help with trading. Trading is based on perceptions, your perception of the market on how to place your bets. What you see is what your mind recognizes, therefore it might take action in line with the perception. This exercise will tell you a lot about yourself and how to improve oneself in terms of perception (if there is a need to).
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